Description

Homemade Vegetable Bouillon ♥ Recipe

January 17, 2010

Today's vegetable recipe: How to make bouillon from scratch using fresh vegetables, a few herbs, lots of salt and a food processor. No cooking required! Keeps in the freezer for everyday use, makes a great homemade food gift.

In 2006, no-knead bread zoomed from blog to blog and oven to oven. Will the same happen in 2010?

(Word dancing: and yes, the word is spelled bouillON, not bullion or boolion or my own fumble-fingered spelling, bouillion. The word is pronounced [bool-yon] or [bool-yuhn] or in the native French, [boo-yawn].)

Here's why:

TASTE Imagine the very best vegetable stock you can imagine, fresh, lively, delicious.

CONVENIENCE Make it once, then it keeps in the freezer. Use it a teaspoon or a tablespoon at a time.

ADAPTABILITY It's impossible not to imagine variations of this stock, with hints of Thai or Mexican or Italian flavors, say.

COST When we buy bouillon, we're paying premium dollars for what's essentially water (if we buy in cans) and salt (both cans and cubes and pastes). When I wrote the series of posts about How to Save Money on Groceries, I admonished, Don't buy water and don't buy salt. Here's one more way to avoid those expenses.

I adapted Heidi's recipe in two ways, first by figuring out how many leeks, carrots and other vegetables are needed to make the Homemade Vegetable Bouillon -- and then I used the trimmings and the leftovers vegetables to make a quick stock. So absolutely nothing went to waste! Last night I took a jar to a party as a hostess gift (she's a cook, she'll 'get it') and today I used it to make a big pot of broccoli soup.

Verdict: This stuff is fabulous and soon all of us will have Heidi to thank. Please note, Heidi credits the recipe to Pam Corbin, author of Preserves: River Cottage Handbook No.2, who tucked this kitchen-transforming recipe into a last chapter along with other odds and ends that fit nowhere else. I'm off to check my own cookbook collection, what goodies are in those 'other' chapters?

COMPLIMENTS"I made this and it's very handy to have and I love that it's all fresh ingredients." ~ BellePlaine"Love love LOVE this stuff." ~ Anonymous

In a food processor, process all the ingredients, pulsing until a small, rough chop forms. Depending on the size of your food processor, you might need to process two or three vegetables at a time, even individually. No problem, just process each one and transfer to a mixing bowl and stir together. Once all the vegetables are processed once and stirred together, return to the food processor, in batches if needed, and process until a thick wet paste forms but individual bits of vegetables remain distinct. Transfer to very clean storage containers and freeze. Because of the salt, the bouillon will be very easy to scoop out a spoonful at a time.

To use, mix 1 teaspoon Homemade Vegetable Bouillon with 1 cup water.

TO MAKE VEGETABLE STOCK from the SCRAPS Before starting, get out a large pot or a Dutch oven to collect leftover vegetables to make a fresh vegetable stock and collect them while trimming the vegetables. Do NOT use the rough edges, root ends, etc, that get trimmed off, discard or compost these but everything else is fair game, including any leftover vegetable pieces plus the green leaves of the leeks and the shallot skins. Add a bay leaf, a few peppercorns and water to cover. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 15 minutes. Strain and the stock within two or three days, it also freezes well.

ALANNA'S TIPS This recipe does rely on both a food processor and a scale. If you don't have a kitchen scale, then today's the last day to enter to win one over at How to Lose Weight with Weight Watchers. That said, I suspect that this recipe is quite forgiving. The trick will be to keep the proportion of salt and vegetables roughly the same. Wash all the vegetables very, very well so there's no contamination that gets into the Homemade Vegetable Bouillon Buy more vegetables than you think are needed, to allow for trimming and also for imperfections in the vegetables. Because of the long storage time, even in the freezer, you really do want to use pretty much perfect vegetables. Sun-dried tomatoes are hard-to-find and expensive in St. Louis. So a trick I use is to pick up just a handful from the olive bar. They're expensive by the pound but I only need a few and so nothing goes to waste. When I bought the vegetables for this stock, it never occurred to me to check to see if I had enough salt on hand. This uses a lot of salt, check your pantry! Celeriac can be hard to find, too, also expensive. Another time I'd substitute more of the inexpensive celery. Choose flat-leafed Italian parsley or curly parsley? Until recently, I'd have opted for Italian parsley for 'more flavor'. But I read somewhere that curly parsley has more flavor especially when it's a little less fresh. For my first batch of bouillon, I used curly parsley. If you have enough, opt for mostly leaves, leaving the somewhat tougher stems for the stockpot. The leaves and stems of the cilantro are both tender and can be used.

Could you give us an idea of the volume of veggies (# of cups)once they have been processed? I am thinking that other veggies could be used if we kept the ratio to salt the same. Specifically, I am thinking that spinach and kale would add a great deal of nutrition. I would eliminate celeriac and fennel as they are less readily available (read "cheap") and not needed for taste IMHO.

Mrs Spock ~ My thinking is maybe six months? Maybe three? I would watch how it smells, once the freshness is lost, it might still be safe but wouldn't add the flavor punch.

Kalyn ~ I saw the recipe, made a grocery list, went to Whole Foods, made it. That quick!

Mary ~ The salt is the preservative in this mixture. Without the salt, it might keep for a week or so, or longer in the freezer, but it would freeze hard so you'd want to make cubes and then freeze. It's also salt that is the 'flavor' we're after. Are you skipping all commercial foods? If so, you may be getting so low on salt consumption that using a bouillon like this might work for you.

GJVision ~ The loose chopped vegetables (processed just once) were about eight cups. Flavor-wise, I agree on the celeriac but fennel is one of my 'secret' tips for beautiful vegetable stocks. It's worth seeking out, IMHO. ;0

What a neat idea - and how handy to be able to keep it in the freezer and spoon out however much you want. I must confess that whenever I'm reading through a recipe and get to where it calls for bouillon, I stop right there, as I never buy those (often nasty) little cubes. Nice to know there's a flavorful, all natural solution. Leave it to those clever River Cottage folks!

P.S. I, too, like the oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes from Trader Joe's - only about three dollars for a jar. And I recently picked up a fairly good-sized little vacuum sealed packet of 'dry' sun-dried tomatoes at Whole Foods for, I think, under two dollars. It was over with the canned tomatoes and sauces.

When I get a hold of a food processor I just might have to try this! I was also thinking of using an ice cube tray to portion out and freeze maybe 2 tbsp portions then store them in a baggie. That way I could just pop one out and throw it in the boiling water when needed. That might be another solution to the no salt option.

Anonymous
on
January 22, 2010

Oh... WOW!!!!!!!! You must be reading my mind! I am obsessed with the Better than Bouillon vegetable base-- I go through a jar a month I bet since I've been making so many soups. The other day I noticed how much sodium was in there and started looking around for recipes to tell me how to make it. I am so on my way to Whole Foods to get some and to pick up some ice cube trays! THANKS!!!!~Nette

Yes, this is a great idea and it was Heidi of 101 cookbooks who posted it but you fail to give credit where credit is due. The recipe comes from Pam Corbin's River Cottage Preserves Handbook. To not mention that (Heidi did mention in the first line of her post) is not fair to the true author of this recipe, even if Heidi says she built on the recipe. Everyone who tries it will make is slightly differently but that doesn't mean they should get credit for it. If it gets sent around the world, it is not Heidi who should get the credit for it but Pam Corbin!

Hi Signe ~ Tis the power of blogging that will send this recipe around the world. If you had read the post through, you would notice that I give Pam Corbin credit, even though she has nothing to do with my knowing about this recipe, that gratitude goes to Heidi. Is it possible that Pam, too, received inspiration from some other source? It is. But we rarely learn that, do we, when recipes are published in print?

Alana, I apologize. I didn't see the last paragraph in your post where you gave credit to Pam when I read through the post yesterday. As for authors of cookbooks giving credit for a recipe when writing a book, it's a question of integrity, just as it is with blogging. Often there is no direct connection to the source to give credit to. But in this case I had just read Heidi's post and the way you wrote that thanks to the innovative Heidi we would all soon be using homemade bouillon at the beginning of your post, I felt that you were giving Heidi credit for inventing this recipe. Sorry that I misunderstood. Signe

Thanks Alana! I made this and it's very handy to have and I love that it's all fresh ingredients. I would probably halve the recipe next time unless I am giving it away to someone else because it makes a lot! Also, thank you for including weights of the ingredients. That is extremely helpful. And I agree with you that the fennel adds a great dimension to it.

I had the same question as Anonymous, though not about calories... about sodium. So I did some rough math:250 g of salt is 98.25 g sodium. Over 168 servings (assuming 3 1/2 cups yield), that ends up being 584 mg sodium per cup of broth.

By comparison, Better than Bouillon regular vegetable base has 680 (organic is 700) and their low sodium has 500.

Quick question for you Alanna! You said, "I adapted Heidi's recipe ... by figuring out how many leeks, carrots and other vegetables are needed to make [it]"

Okay could you clue us in? Or am I just blind and not seeing it? Can you tell us how many leeks, carrots and other vegetables are needed?

Thanks in advance!

Anonymous
on
January 13, 2011

Love love LOVE this stuff. I gave some to my aunt who is a food snob and she was very impressed. I love to make roasted beets with it by peeling and chopping them then tossing them with a little olive oil, some water and a splash of red wine vinegar and adding a tablespoon or two of this to them. I also make my green beans with them, instead of using a ton of those little cubes.

Just what I needed. Regarding how to say it, in fact, not boo-yon but much closer to boo-wee-on. The letters "oui" are pronounced wee (yes? mais oui). The final "on" is stopped before the N becomes audible, in the French way.

I'd be happier without the salt, but I guess one could use Lo-Salt which is high potassium/low sodium. I am tempted to slice the ingredients up, without the salt, and dry it all in my dehydrator so it can be powdered in the coffee mill. I reckon that would last a very long while. Has anyone here done that?

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